1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of measurement science and field measurements, and is generally related to the measurement, visualization, and storage of measurable characteristics of any spatially distributed group of objects or networks. Specifically, this invention relates to a method and system used to measure, record, and visualize the quantitative quality or performance metric of measurable parameters as applied to communications networks and the components and infrastructure that comprise such networks. The invention is also applicable, however, to the measurement, interpretation, visualization, and storage of the quality, performance, or observable metrics or features of any group of objects distributed in space, such as a distributed network of power cables, water pipes, heating or air conditioning systems, or groups of buildings, rooms, cars, or other entities that are located in distinct locations and which have properties that may be measured or quantified.
2. Description of the Related Art
Distributed networks of components are used throughout buildings and campuses, and are vital for carrying materials throughout a facility. When buildings are built, wires must be run to connect power outlets to an external power source, and air conditioning or heater ducts must be installed throughout a facility or campus. These distributed networks of components generally distribute air, fluids, or in the case of a communication or power network, electrons, throughout a building or campus. Wireless communication networks distribute radio or optical waves to provide coverage. When distributing a distributed network of components within buildings, or between buildings, or within urban or suburban cores, it is often difficult to locate the physical location and actual installed components that comprise such distributed networks after the building or core is completely built, and field measurements must be conducted to determine suitability, quality, or proper performance of the “hidden” network. Such distributed networks are vital for the operation of any building or campus or urban area, and may include passive or active components that require power or which provide control signals, and which may be in plain sight or may be hidden underground, behind walls, located in raised ceilings, etc.
Alternatively, it is often instructive to quantify the condition, suitability, or to measure or quantify the inventory, of a number of spatially distributed objects that are in plain view. For example, on an army base or in a large apartment complex or shopping mall, there may be many different apartments or rental spaces that need to be checked and validated for suitability for tenants—the chore of ensuring there are sufficient pieces of furniture, appropriate lighting, proper number of rooms, or measuring the cleanliness, condition, or state of each apartment or office is vital to the ongoing inventory management or preparations of a real estate operation, and a computerized method for rapidly inventorying and measuring (e.g. inspecting) the condition or quality or specific counts of particular measurable objects that are spatially distributed and viewable is important.
In the case of distributed communications networks within buildings or campuses, active components, such as base station access points (for wireless local area networks), base stations (for cellular or PCS systems), routers and switches (for wired or wireless networks), cables and conduit that connect such active items, and individual user terminals (such as mainframe or portable computers, handheld devices, Bluetooth devices, or other components (fixed or portable), that may be wired or wirelessly connected to a network) are used to send information from one place to another, and these are often difficult to physically detect. Thus, measurements are often required at various locations, sometimes involving off-the-air monitoring, or monitoring from specific identifiable jacks or outlets, when components of the network are hard to see or hard to reach. Information sent in such communication networks often takes the form of voice, video, or data. To transmit information, a communications network breaks down a message into a series of digital or analog symbols, which are often represented by finite binary numbers in practice. The process of representing information can be analog or digital, as is well understood by artisans in the communications field. Such methods for representing and transmitting messages in an analog or digital communication network are well known in the art, and are described for example in the popular texts “Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice”, Prentice Hall, c. 2002, 2nd edition, by T. S. Rappaport, or “Digital Communications, Second Edition” by Bernard Sklar, c. 2001. Such transmissions may be carried over wired distributed networks, over the air via wireless RF or optical networks, optical cable networks, or any combination thereof. Similar fundamental knowledge exists for other types of distributed networks, such as cooling or heating distribution networks, plumbing, structured cable or wiring, as known and practiced by skilled artisans in such fields.
For the specific application of a communications network, it is known that data communication networks are a specific type of communication network that transmit digital information, represented as bits or bytes. While conceptually simple, the means of transmitting the data from some point A to some point B can be complicated and may widely vary in implementation. Hundreds of protocols, hardware devices, software techniques, products, and programs exist to handle how data is sent correctly and efficiently. The exact performance of a given data communication network is extremely difficult to predict or even measure because of this complexity. Depending on particular number of users, network delays outside of the campus, or movement or settings of equipment within a facility or a large area network, it is well known that there are a myriad of issues that may impact the performance of a communications network and the channels that carry the information between users of such a network. Such networks require measurements to be performed in-situ so that a technician or service worker can rapidly determine the quality of the network. In the future, however, as wireless and wired digital networks become pervasive, it will be of paramount importance to provide tools and techniques to non-technical personnel so that less-specialized people, or even simple, automated robots, can readily perform installation, test, calibration, troubleshooting, and routine maintenance on distributed networks or spatially distributed objects.
Data communication networks can often be classified as either a circuit switched or a packet switched network, both of which are well known in the art. Both network types use channels to transmit information. A channel is a name give to the communications path (or paths) between users or devices connected in a communications network. A channel may consist of many different individual hardware devices and is a specific route or possible set of routes between a transmitter and a receiver. In a circuit switched network, information is transmitted by way of an exclusively reserved channel. A network channel is reserved temporarily for the sole use of a single transmission and bits are sent all at once for the particular user. An example of this is the use of an AMPS or ETACS voice channel in an analog cellular network or the transmission of a document using a fax machine. After establishing a connection, all data is sent from the first fax machine to the second in a single, long stream of bits. The bits in this case are transmitted as different frequency tones on the telephone line. A high pitched toned may represent a “1” while a low pitched tone may represent a “0.” The receiving fax receives the bits of the message by translating the series of high and low pitch tones into data bits and reconstructs the original document.
Packet switched networks are another type of data communication networks in which all data bits are transmitted as many, small chunks of data bits called packets and sent individually from one location to another. A packet is a self-contained portion of a full message that is made up of a header, data bits, and sometimes a footer. The packet contains information in the header and footer that allows the data communications network to properly transmit the packet and to know of which message the data in the packet is a part. Packet switched networks are classified as connection oriented or connectionless depending on how the packets are transferred. In connection-oriented networks, a network channel is used which is predefined for each transmission, whereas, in connectionless networks, packets are sent simultaneously on a shared channel in multiple transmissions. In this case, packets require an identifier that gives the address of the receiver. This address is understood by the communications network to allow the packet to be properly sent to the correct receiver. Since each packet can be transmitted separately and thus interleaved in time with packets from other transmissions, it is generally more efficient to use a connectionless transmission method when using shared network resources.
An example of a connectionless, packet-based transmission is a file transfer between two computers on an internet protocol (IP) based, Ethernet network that both computers are attached to. In this case, the file that is to be transmitted is fragmented at the transmitter into appropriate packets and labeled with the IP address, which is the identifier used by the network to forward the packet to the correct receiver. The packets are then sent from the transmitting computer to the receiving computer. The Ethernet network is capable of supporting multiple file transfers from many different computers all using the same network by controlling the flow of packets from each destination in a shared fashion. The receiver then assembles the packets into an exact copy of the original file, completing the transmission.
All communication networks utilize some form of communication protocol to regulate the transmission and reception of information. A protocol is the set of rules that all hardware and software on a communication network must follow to allow proper communication of data to take place. Many hundreds of protocols are in active use today in the worldwide exchange of information. Some of these protocols, such as the Internet Protocol (IP), Transport Control Protocol (TCP) or the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), define the way in which the network is accessed. Other protocols, such as the Internet Protocol (IP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), or the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), define how messages and packets are formatted, transmitted, and received.
All communication networks may be analyzed and measured in some fashion to evaluate the efficiency and performance of the network as well as to confirm the network is functioning properly. In order to evaluate the functionality of these data networks, certain performance criteria are used. These performance criteria include, but are not limited to: SNR, SIR, RSSI, Ec/Io, number of retries, throughput, bandwidth, quality of service, bit error rate, packet error rate, frame error rate, dropped packet rate, packet latency, round trip time, propagation delay, transmission delay, processing delay, queuing delay, network capacity, packet jitter, bandwidth delay product and handoff delay time. Each performance criterion specifies a different performance parameter of a data communications network, or relates a specific measurement to well known general metrics as taught here. These criteria are further described below, and may be measured to determine, during a field survey or through remote means, the quality of the network under study.
A link is a portion of a path followed by a message between a transmitter and a receiver in a data communications network. Network connections often consist of individual devices relaying network packets from the transmitter to the receiver. This means a network connection can consist of several actual transmissions between the original transmitter and the intended receiver. Each individual relay is called a link. Typically a full network connection consists of several links. Performance criteria can be measured for each individual link. Such concepts and terms are well understood by practitioners.
Received Signal Strength Intensity (RSSI) is a measurement of the strength of the transmitted signal a receiver detects. It is generally measured in watts (W), milliwatts (mW), or decibels relative to milliwatts (dBm), or some other metric that is mathematically related to signal strength (for example, the E-field or open circuit voltage) and reflects the power of the signal being received. In many communication systems, RSSI directly reflects the quality of the connection between the transmitter and receiver. Signal-to-Interference (SIR) and Signal-to-Noise (SNR) are comparisons of the RSSI of the desired signal to the RSSI of other signals (i.e., interferers) or general background, spurious, thermal, or cosmic noise. These comparisons are ratios, generally measured in decibels (dB), and provides a separate perspective on the quality of the communication link between transmitter and receiver. Similarly, Ec/Io is the Energy in a spread spectrum chip, divided by the Interference energy in a detection bandwidth, and this is related to SNR and SIR.
Throughput is a measurement of the amount of data, which can be transmitted between two locations in a data network, not including header, footer or routing information bits. It is generally measured in bits per second (bps) or symbols per second (sps) and can be specified for hardware, software, firmware or any combination thereof that make up a connection between transmitter and receiver in a data communication network. Frame Error Rate (FER) and Bit Error Rate (BER) are statistical measures of the instantaneous or average likelihood of receiving a frame or bit in error through one or more channels or paths in the network, between any two particular network points. Bandwidth is the raw data rate that may be sustained by a given communications network and is generally slightly higher than throughput. For instance, an Ethernet link may be rated for a 10 Mbps bandwidth but a measurement of an actual file transfer may show that the rate at which data can actually be transferred between two computers using that same link is only a throughput of 6.8 Mbps as is taught in Peterson, L. L. and Davie, B. S., Computer Networks. A Systems Approach. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2000. Bandwidth may alternatively mean the RF or baseband passband of a filter or channel. Bandwidth is defined in many ways in textbooks such as “Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice,” by T. S. Rappaport, c.1996, and the second edition of the same text, c. 2002.
Quality of service (QoS) is a term that is used to describe networks that allocate a certain amount of bandwidth to a particular network transmitter. Such a network will allow a transmission to request a certain bandwidth. The network will then decide if it can guarantee that bandwidth or not. The result is that network programs have a reliable bandwidth that can more easily be adapted to. When the quality of service of a connection is measured, the bandwidth that the network claims to offer should be compared to the actual bandwidth for different requested bandwidths. QoS also relates to packet delay, BER, FER, and the number of retries needed to successfully communicate data packets throughout a network.
FIG. 1 illustrates the difference between bits, packets, and frames. Various error rates are defined for data communication networks for bits, packets and frames. Bits are the core of packets and frames. The bits are the actual message data that is sent on the communications network. Packets include the data bits and the packet header and packet footer. The packet header and packet footer are added by communications network protocols and are used to ensure the data bits are sent to the right location in the communications network and interpreted correctly by the receiver. The packet header and packet footer are also used to ensure that packets are sent correctly and that errors are detected should they occur. Frames are simply series of bits with a certain pattern or format that allows a receiver to know when one frame begins or ends. A bit error rate is the percentage of bits that reach the receiver incorrectly or do not reach the receiver as compared to the number of bits sent. Packet error rate or dropped packet rate is the percentage of packets that reach the receiver incorrectly or do not reach the receiver as compared to the number of packets sent. A frame error rate is the percentage of frames that reach the receiver incorrectly or do not reach the receiver as compared to the number of packets sent.
Several terms are used to quantify the delay times of certain network events and may be expressed in time units of seconds. Packet latency is the time required to send a packet from transmitter to receiver, while Round Trip Time (RTT) is the time required for a packet to be sent from transmitter to receiver and for some sort of acknowledgement to be returned from the receiver to the original transmitter. Propagation delay, transmission delay, processing delay, and queuing delay describe the time required for different portions of a packet transmission to occur. The packet latency and round trip time of a network connection is found by summing the propagation delay, transmission delay, processing delay and queuing delay of either a one way or round trip network connection. Propagation delay is the time required for a packet to traverse a physical distance from the transmitter to the receiver. Transmission delay is the time required from when the first bit of a packet arrives for the last bit of the same packet to arrive. Processing delay refers to the time required to subdivide a data message into the individual packets at the transmitter, and to the time required to recreate the full data message from the data packets at the receiver. Queuing delay refers to the time spent waiting for shared resources to be freed from use by other transmissions. These delay times are all useful for evaluating different aspects of a data communications network performance.
Two other network performance criteria are packet jitter and bandwidth delay product. Packet jitter is the variation in the arrival time of packets that are expected to arrive at a regular rate and is typically measured in time units of seconds. A bandwidth delay product is the number of bits that can be sent from a transmitter before the first bit sent actually reached the receiver. The bandwidth delay product is found by multiplying the packet latency of a certain link by the bandwidth of the same link.
Handoffs occur in wireless data networks when a user moves out of range of one access point and into range of another access point. In this situation, the first access point must pass the responsibility of delivering data to the wireless user to the second access point. The handoff time is the amount of time required by an access point to coordinate with another access point to allow a wireless user to connect from one access point to another access point.
While the above explanation teaches some of the basic parameters that may be measured or which are of interest to current day wireless and wired networks, it should be clear that other important metrics or parameters, which relate to the instantaneous, average, peak, minimum, near-term, or long-term performance of a communications network, are known now or may be known in the future. The above list of parameters are useful to measure and record, so that technicians may understand the functioning of the network, so that troubleshooting, improvements, or evaluation of network quality may be quantitatively obtained through measurement, and displayed, stored, presented, archived, or compared with prior performance levels or metrics that were obtained earlier or by other personnel. Furthermore, it is evident that there are metrics or quantities or values that may be related to the above listing of parameters, which may be known now or in the future, which could be measured to determine or quantify performance levels or quality levels for communications networks, and such metrics may also be measured, monitored, displayed, stored, presented, and compared with prior performance metrics.
While the above description of a communications network has detailed many of the important network parameters that can or should be measured to determine actual performance of a network that is installed in the field, it should be clear to anyone skilled in the art of plumbing, air conditioning, heating, structured cabling, or in other areas that involve the installation, test, troubleshooting, or repair of a distributed network of components within buildings, between buildings, or throughout a group of buildings, that there are other pertinent metrics or quality levels, specific to the particular type of distributed network of components, that can or should be measured to determine the performance of the particular distributed network of interest. For example, to test the performance of an air conditioning system, it is appropriate to measure temperatures in different rooms of a building while the air conditioning system is running, and to record those measured values to determine if the proper distribution of building cooling is occurring. Similarly, water pressure can be measured in a water pipe system at various spatially separated locations in the water piping system; temperatures may be measured to determine if water heaters are functioning and properly distributing heated water throughout a campus; and voltages or currents throughout a distributed cabling system, for example, can be measured to determine if proper power distribution is occurring in a cabling system or structured cable installation. Thus, it is clear that for various distributed networks of components, there are known to skilled artisans various parameters and equipments that are used to properly measure, monitor, display, visualize, store, present, and compare various performance metrics.
Furthermore, it should be clear to one skilled in the art that for purposes of real estate assessment, or for measuring and recording the quality of various objects at different locations in space, it is advantageous to have a means of measuring or quantifying the physical condition, aesthetic quality, suitability for occupancy, condition of the physical conditions, proper amount of furnishings, cost of goods, quantity of particular objects, or other physical or observable attributes involving the suitability or inventory of spatially distributed objects, within a computer device that a relatively unskilled person can carry around for rapid recording of observable results.
The current invention teaches a valuable innovation that allows user-defined, settable or selectable textual strings or graphical icons to be used in conjunction with such field measurements or observations described above, such that the invention provides meaningful contextual displays and recording of information regarding physical location of the measurement or the meaning of the measurement, itself. For example, a facilities manager may wish to evaluate the quality of the paint job or the quality of the paint that has been used at many different buildings throughout a city or a number of cities. By traveling to each city to visit each building, the painter may visually inspect, or use a camera or infrared measuring device or similar measurement tool, to record the particular quality of paint, and such quality of paint job or paint could be measured, displayed, and stored using textual or graphical icons as taught by this invention. For rental property, where various apartments or dormitories are to be rented and each apartment must first be measured or checked for appropriate furnishings, quality, inventory, or suitability, the present invention could be used to rapidly provide a means of displaying, recording and storing the survey results in a manner that conveys significant meaning to the user without requiring the user to understand or know the specifics regarding the measurements or the measurement locations prior to their performance of the field survey. The description below demonstrates that the invention may be applied to a wide range of applications where rapid surveys or measurements or inspections of objects in space are required, often by individuals who lack extensive computer background or training, or who lack specific knowledge of the technical details or rationale for the particular measurements that they are tasked with conducting.
For the specific case of communications networks, software utilities and hardware devices (e.g. measurement tools) have been developed to measure the performance statistics of data communication networks on an on-going basis, instantaneously, or throughout the lifetime of data communication networks. Some of the more common and relevant tools are briefly described here.
A large number of technical, command line tools are available to quickly allow a computer user to measure the approximate network performance of a connection. Many command line programs are widely used on Windows, UNIX, and Macintosh operating systems and are somewhat useful for diagnostic and troubleshooting work on data networks. Examples of these command line programs include ping and traceroute. Using the ping command line program, it is possible to measure approximate data latency between different data network devices and confirm that a network connection is available between the two devices. Network connections often consist of individual devices relaying network packets from the transmitter to the receiver. This means a network connection can consist of several actual transmissions between the original transmitter and the intended receiver. Each individual relay is called a link. Typically a full network connection consists of several links. Thus, using traceroute, a probable path from relaying device to relaying device between the transmitter and the receiver can be determined so that the exact links used by the network transmissions are known. Additionally, using traceroute, the time required to traverse each individual link can be measured, and individual links that may not be functioning properly can be identified.
Various command line tools that are not included with operating systems have also been developed for somewhat more accurate, though still approximate, network measurement tasks. Some examples of these tools include ttcp, and tcpdump. ttcp stands for Test TCP http://www.pcausa.com/Utilities/pcattcp.htm and is a free utility originally written for the BSD Linux operating system, but is now available for other UNIX operating systems as well as Microsoft Windows. ttcp is a basic point-to-point throughput measurement program that allows the user to control buffer sizes, various low level TCP or UDP options and control the exact data that is sent.
tcpdump is a simple utility from the class of tools called packet sniffers. Packet sniffers allow a network administrator to view the content, including header and footer information, of actual packets on a network. tcpdump allows a user to view (or “sniff”) packets that are received by a host (though not necessarily intended for that host) and display all headers that match a certain user configurable pattern. tcpdump is a useful tool for troubleshooting network connections because it allows the user a direct view of the exact network traffic.
Pathchar is a UNIX command line utility which is capable of measuring the throughput between each network relay device (e.g. a router, hub or switch) in a data communications network by varying the size of the test packets that it transmits and measuring the latency of that packet transmission to various network points. The tool functions very similarly to traceroute but adds the ability to measure throughput (albeit indirectly), not just latency. Pathchar is only limited by the network hardware in the links it measures. The program needs a hub, switch or computer to transmit an acknowledgement to the test packets. This means that hidden links that do not transmit acknowledgements such as Ethernet bridges cannot be measured individually by pathchar. All of the above listed tools and techniques require some degree of computer capabilities, and often are used by more technical individuals, such as information technology staff members or engineers or technicians skilled in the art of computer communications and networking.
Several companies produce technically sophisticated network measurement, monitoring, tracking and forecasting utilities. Some of the commonly used utilities are discussed below. The tools selected are illustrative of the state of the art of network performance measurement, and illustrate that a high degree of technical knowledge is currently required to properly use such tools.
NetIQ Corporation (formerly Ganymede Software, Inc.) makes a network monitoring and forecasting tool called Chariot. Chariot is able to measure throughput and many other network statistics for all popular network types, operating systems and protocols available today. The program uses a server and several small agent programs to collect data. The server checks each agent, installed on user's computers throughout the network, at regular intervals and uses them to measure network characteristics while storing the results on the server. These agents can measure the network connection to the server or to one another and are capable of simulating the traffic patterns of any network program and any desired usage pattern of one or more hypothetical users. The program is also capable of using the measured data to forecast expected network traffic and conditions.
Visonael Corporation (formerly NetSuite Development Corporation) makes several network tracking and measurement products, including NetSuite Audit, Design and Advisor. These software products are capable of automatically detecting the network equipment in use. This information as well as manually entered information can then be placed in a physical or logical diagram of the network. Visonael also offers a product to verify that networks have been configured properly and can make recommendations for configuration changes and upgrades to your network.
SAFCO Technologies, Inc. (now a part of Agilent Technologies) has created several wireless data measurement and prediction products. SAFCO makes a product called DataPrint, which is used to measure various data performance parameters of mobile telephone data networks.
Berkeley Varitronics has developed hardware products that measure and demodulate various packets in a wireless LAN network. These products include the Cricket, Cicada, Alligator and Grasshopper which measure off-air wireless LAN network signal strengths and data.
Spirent Communications (and its TAS subsidiary) has a number of products for Operations Support Systems (OSS) and network monitoring, including a recent hand-held WLAN measurement system for IEEE 802.11b networks.
Wireless Valley Communications, Inc. has created SitePlanner®, which is capable of predicting, measuring and tracking the site-specific network performance of a data communications network in a three-dimensional computer model of a physical environment. SitePlanner uses a software module called LANFielder™ to measure throughput, packet latency and packet error rates for any wired or wireless network connection in any Internet Protocol (IP) data communications network. LANFielder is detailed in co-pending application Ser. No. 09/688,145. Additionally, SitePlanner allows a full network to be modeled in a physically accurate manner so that precise measurements and performance predictions can be made in a site specific way. The process utilized by SitePlanner to collect and embed measurements into a computer model of a physical environment is detailed more fully in co-pending application Ser. No. 09/221,985.
Several US patents somewhat related to, and which allow, the present disclosed invention are listed below:    U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,149 entitled “Computerized Three Dimensional Data Acquisition Apparatus and Method” filed by Kozah et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,458,123 entitled “System for Monitoring Patient Location and Data” filed by Unger;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,644 entitled “Cell Engineering Tool and Methods” to Pickering et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,518 entitled “System and Method for Collecting Data Used to Form a Geographic Information System Database” filed by Bradshaw et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,539,665 entitled “Recording and Retrieval of Information Relevant to the Activities of a User” filed by Lamming et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,561,841 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Planning a Cellular Radio Network by Creating a Model on a Digital Map Adding Properties and Optimizing Parameters, Based on Statistical Simulation Results” to O. Markus;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,821,937 entitled “Computer Method for Updating a Network Design” filed by Tonelli et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,831,610 entitled “Designing Networks” filed by D. L. Tonelli et al.    U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,328 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Wireless Communication System Organization” filed by K. K. Chawla et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,598,532 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Optimizing Computer Networks” filed by M. Liron et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,128 entitled “Apparatus and Processes for Realistic Simulation of Wireless Information Transport Systems” filed by K. H. Brockel et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,949,988 entitled “Prediction System for RF Power Distribution” filed by F. Feisullin et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,328 entitled “Method and Device for Placement of Transmitters in Wireless Networks” filed by A. Ephremides and D. Stamatelos;    U.S. Pat. No. 5,953,669 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Predicting Signal Characteristics in a Wireless Communication System” filed by G. Stratis et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,021 entitled “Device for Mapping Dwellings and Other Structures in 3D” filed by Tognazzini;    U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,722 entitled “Assessing Network Performance without Interference with Normal Network Operations” filed by W. J. Lipa et al;    U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,813 entitled “Local Area Multiple Object Tracking System” filed by Wadell et al; and    U.S. Pat. No. 6,317,599 entitled “Method and System for Automated Optimization of Antenna Positioning in 3-D,” filed by T. S. Rappaport et al.
Other US patents that deal with the graphical display of measurement data in a wide range of areas, and which allow the currently disclosed invention, include the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,050 to Smokoffet al is in the area of medical instrumentation displays. Smokoff et al teach measurement results that map to a settable color table, and further teach that the location of the displayed color pixels may be positioned by the user on a display device. The invention also teaches that a program window may be minimized into an icon when a higher priority window or an alarm is to be displayed. Nowhere does Smokoff et al teach the idea of allowing the user or a programmer to provide a customizable or selectable library of graphical icons or textual strings for the purpose of prompting the user with regard to the type or location of measurement to be performed, nor does Smokoff et al teach the idea of icons or textual strings being used to provide interpretation of measured information by an untrained or unskilled user. Furthermore, Smokoff et al do not provide any spatial information regarding the measurement or the measurement location.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,620 to Snider et al is in the area of ultrasound imaging display. Snider et al teach using graphical measurement tools to allow a physician or medical examiner to simplify the ultrasound recording process. Based on the specific diagnosis of the patient, the invention eliminates particular menu or measurement options, and displays a subset of technical menus, for easier use by the physician. Thus, feedback is provided by the apparatus based on observed measurements, where such stimulus may be given by the physician or automatically sensed during use of the invention.
There are clear differences between U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,620 to Snider et al and the presently disclosed invention. Nowhere does Snider et al teach the idea of allowing the user or a programmer to provide a customizable or selectable library of graphical icons or textual strings for the purpose of prompting the user with regard to the type or location of measurement to be performed. Instead, Snider et al provide a specific set of menu text strings that have specific medical meaning, so that the medical professional can select from a subset of potential measurements. Snider et al do not teach the concept of preprogramming, customizing, or recasting the text strings prior, during, or after measurements, nor do they teach the idea of graphical icons or textual strings being used to provide interpretation of measured information by an untrained or unskilled user. In fact, Snider et al do not contemplate the use of graphical icons or text strings for the display or storeage of particular measured results. Instead, Snider et al rely on measured results appearing as a scientific, medically pertinent ultrasound recording.
Text strings that are used as cues in Snider et al are clearly intended to have meaning only to trained professional physicians or ultrasound readers. Thus, Snider et al do not contemplate the use of graphical icons or textual strings by those with little technical knowledge, computer knowledge, or analytical ability. Further, Snider does not contemplate spatially distributed measurements, or measurement cues, that allow a user to conduct a rapid survey of a spatially distributed network or group of objects by non-trained individuals. Unlike Snider et al, the currently disclosed invention provides a graphical icon or textual string display for each measurement event or parameter, whereas Snider et al rely on the user being able to select from a specific set of medical menu options to perform measurements of a particular type, as required by the patient's condition. The selection by the user in Snider et al require knowledge of the medical meaning of such menu options, which is very different from the current disclosure. Snider et al do not contemplate the use of any spatial information regarding the measurement itself, nor do they contemplate the icon or text string providing any information to the user with regard to the location of the measurement.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,377 to Greenbaum et al pertains to the area of creating a star diagram for use by a physician to analyze disease states. Greenbaum et al teach a method for mapping measured blood sample data with statistical variance into a specific diagram that is based on a mathematical mapping of the values and number of measured parameters. The display is a mathematically constructed star or concentric circle shape, wherein the particular displayed shape is a function of mathematical post-processing that is applied on the measurements using a specific mathematical formulation as described in the body and claims of the patent. Greenbaum et al contemplate the ability to graphically depict a plurality of measurement parameters, wherein each measurement parameter is processed using a collection of individual measurement samples so that the mean and variance for each parameter may be computed. For example, a particular length or width of the star diagram is directly related mathematically to the amount of hemoglobin found in the blood samples.
Nowhere does Greenbaum et al teach the idea of allowing the user or a programmer to provide a customizable or selectable library of graphical icons or textual strings for the purpose of prompting the user with regard to the type or location of measurement to be performed, nor does Greenbaum et al teach the idea of icons or textual strings being used to provide interpretation of measured information by an untrained or unskilled user. Unlike our invention, Greenbaum et al provide a specific mathematical formulation for the creation of a specific display shape to represent a large number of measurement samples and measurement parameters, whereas the current invention teaches a selectable and customizable set of graphical icons or textual strings that may be completely arbitrary and may be completely independent of the particular measurement parameter, defined solely based on a user's personal preference for each measurement. That is, our invention provides a graphical icon or textual string display for each measurement event or parameter, whereas Greenbaum et al require a sampling of numerous measurements and numerous measurement parameters from blood samples before the specific graphical shape can be drawn. Furthermore, Greenbaum et al do not contemplate the use of any spatial information regarding the measurement or the measurement location in their patent, nor do they contemplate the use of the diagram to drive the user to select a particular measurement type or location, or to be used by those with little technical knowledge, computer knowledge, or analytical ability.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,147 by Shaefer et al pertains to a graphical display of the safety status within a processing plant. The invention describes a display consisting of a polygon or group of polygons that are scaled and contain rays that map to a mathematical normalization of the particular measured data. Shaefer et al do not teach or contemplate the capabilities or methods of the currently disclosed invention.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,953,009 and 6,326,987 to Alexander describe a measurement icon annotation method whereby a user of an oscilloscope is able to annotate waveform measurements and measurement results with graphical icons, so long as the user drags the icons at the appropriate or proximate locations on the display of the oscilloscope. Alexander's invention allows the user to select a particular graphical icon in order to invoke a particular measurement operation on a displayed waveform in the oscilloscope window. The user, who is an engineer or technician, must rely on visual feedback and mental interpretation of the current displayed measurement of the waveform in order to use the invention. That is, Alexander teaches that the user must first view the waveform on the display, and then drag the icon to a particular location on the waveform on the user's display in proximity to the displayed waveform. Thus, the user relies on continuous feedback and technical interpretation of the displayed measurement, and must be able to view and make some interpretation of the displayed measurement (the waveform) in order to make decisions as to how to use the invention (placing the icon). Clearly, Alexander teaches in his invention that an icon must be positioned in a particular location on the display by a user by dragging the icon to a location that is deemed appropriate by the user, through the user's interpretation of the displayed waveform. The particular location on the display at which the user places the icon has a direct determination on the user's obtained measurement result.
The currently disclosed invention is different from Alexander, as the current invention does not require the user to understand or interpret anything about the measurement being carried out, and the user is not required to place or move the graphical icons or textual strings in any fashion on a measurement display—the graphical icons or textual strings in the current invention may be completely arbitrary and completely unrelated to the desired measurement, and do not require positioning on the display by the user. Furthermore, unlike the present invention, Alexander fails to contemplate the idea of the icon or text string having the ability to be activated or to instruct or to provide customizeable cues that may be used to suggest a location or instruction to the user. Alexander does not contemplate an icon or text string having the ability to invoke a measurement by a user without initial knowledge or understanding of the measurement or without interpretation on the measurement display induced by the user. Alexander requires positioning of the icon to a proximate location on the display of the measured waveform, thus requiring the user to first obtain a desired waveform and to then interpret the particular portion of the waveform and the particular measurement that is of technical interest.
Alexander does not teach our concept of the icon providing visual or mental cues that allow the user to invoke a measurement without having to possess any interpretation or knowledge of the measurement being performed. Unlike Alexander, the currently disclosed invention is not sensitive to the positioning of an icon on a screen in order to obtain meaningful measurements. That is to say, the present invention does not relate the graphical icon's position on a display to the accuracy or meaning of the measurement as is required by Alexander. In addition, Alexander does not consider the icon as providing any spatial information to the user as a cue for measurement position or location, nor does Alexander teach that the icon contains spatial information in the display of the measurement results.
Furthermore, Alexander does not teach the idea of allowing the graphical icons or textual strings to be arbitrarily preprogrammed or customized by the user prior to, during, or after measurement use, such that user is able to use icons that have no logical relation to the particular measurement being conducted. Indeed, Alexander assumes a technical user (a technician or engineer) is operating the oscilloscope, and his inventions are geared toward improving efficiencies of technical individuals who must first interpret the displayed measured waveforms before annotating the results with icons.
The inventions, products, and patents cited above are useful for the design or measurement or analysis of the performance of communication networks and for other important measurement functions, such as in the medical field or in plant monitoring, but it is clear to one skilled in the art that it would be difficult for an untrained, unskilled worker to readily use the above listed products, inventions, or patents to rapidly conduct a field survey. That is, while the above-mentioned products or devices may measure one or more of the aforementioned performance metrics and display those in some fashion for analysis, none of the aforementioned inventions, products, or patents provide the means to measure or store measured network performance such that each measurement reading or measurement instruction is associated with some form of textual or graphical identifier that can be used concurrently or at a later time for easy inspection or analysis of the data by a less-technical or untrained individual. None of the prior art contemplates the ability to instruct a user on how or where to collect measurements in an easy fashion, while allowing the measured performance metrics to be stored and displayed (visualized) in a novel way so that an untrained or non-technical or non-specialized worker can rapidly identify with ease the particular meaning or location or position of the measurement.